I’m still not sure about the title though, The roots of plant intelligence. I’ll cheerfully concede he’s forgotten more botany than I’ll ever know. Still, I wonder if the use of the word intelligence obscures what’s going on. I think it suggests cognition, whereas I see it more as a stunningly complex and responsive ability to react to stimuli. Despite that I think the closing part of the talk is very exciting.

Stefano Mancuso’s idea of plantoids, robots inspired by plants, seems obvious when talks about it, especially for the study and colonisation of soil. The concept of hybrids utilising the extraordinary capabilities of plants with processing power (and movement?) is one of those stunningly clever ideas that make you wonder why you didn’t think of it. But will these creations be intelligent? That might depend on where you sit on the subject of plant intelligence. On the other hand a planning and proactive processing centre in silicon hooked onto a plant base could exhibit a very different type of intelligence to the kind of thing that we’ve been primed for by science-fiction.

My head’s spinning with this one, so if anyone would like to point me in the direction of useful things to read, or patiently explain why I’m wrong to think a plant-based artificial intelligence couldn’t happen, please leave a comment below. I’m starting with a visit to the website of the Laboratorio Internazionale di Neurobiologia Vegetale.

*In the interests of maintaining lab-cred I should point out that everybody else in the office has almost certainly heard of Stefano Mancuso’s work.